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1.	Meta Overhauls Generative AI Group By Kalley Huang Source: The Information

Meta Platforms on Tuesday overhauled its generative artificial intelligence group, which is responsible for the company's key bets in AI, including its flagship large language model Llama and its Meta AI assistant, according to an internal post reviewed by The Information.

As part of the changes, Meta has split its generative AI group in two: one team to oversee the company's AI research and another to handle its consumer AI products, which includes Meta AI. The former will be co-led by Ahmad Al-Dahle, previously the head of the whole group, and Amir Frenkel, former vice president of mixed reality technology. Connor Hayes, a longtime product executive at Meta, will lead the consumer AI products team.

"I believe this structure will be a major upgrade to overcome the biggest challenges that I've heard from many of you, and will help accelerate our overall progress," Meta's Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said in the post.

A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment. Axios first reported on the restructuring.

The reorganization comes after months of challenges for the group. In January, Meta was caught flat-footed by the performance of models from Chinese developer DeepSeek. To improve the quality and speed of its work, Meta in February shuffled around its generative AI group, installing a new product leader and moving out two engineering leaders.

But the group's woes mounted. Meta struggled to develop Llama 4, the newest generation of its model, and pushed back its release date because the model wasn't performing as well on technical benchmarks as the company hoped.

Meta ultimately released the first versions of Llama 4, known as Scout and Maverick, in April. The models performed well on a popular leaderboard but became roiled in controversy when it was revealed that Meta had uploaded an experimental version of Llama 4 Maverick to the leaderboard, which performed better than the version actually released to the public.

2.	Trump Media Company Raises $2.5 Billion to Invest in Bitcoin By Ken Brown Source: The Information

President Donald Trump's media company is raising $2.5 billion from big investors to buy bitcoin, deepening the president's involvement in cryptocurrency.

Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates Trump's social media company Truth Social, will be following the lead of several other big players in crypto including Strategy, formerly Microstrategy.

The companies' stocks have been driven much higher than the value of the bitcoin they hold, giving them an incentive to sell stock to buy more bitcoin.

Shares of Trump Media & Technology fell more than 10% on Tuesday. The company is selling $1.5 billion worth of company stock and $1 billion in convertible bonds that pay 0% in interest and are due in 2028.

Bitcoin purchases by companies like Strategy as well as popular bitcoin exchange-traded funds have pushed the price of the cryptocurrency to record levels. Trump's money-losing company stands to benefit if it holds bitcoin when the president launches his promised bitcoin reserve.

Trump Media and Technology is separate from World Liberty Financial, a crypto company backed by his two sons. World Liberty started a stablecoin that is valued at more than $2 billion.

3.	Salesforce to Buy Informatica For $8 Billion By Martin Peers Source: The Information

Salesforce struck a deal to buy data management firm Informatica for $8 billion in cash, as the subscription software company looks once again to acquisitions to accelerate its growth.

The acquisition is the first big deal struck by Salesforce since it bought Slack in 2021 for $28 billion, capping a string of ever-larger purchases. Under pressure from activist investors over Salesforce's weak profit margins, the company focused on improving the efficiency of its operations and pulled back on acquisitions as a growth strategy. Salesforce's topline growth decelerated to 9% in the year to January and it forecast even slower growth this year.

Informatica isn't growing quickly: its first quarter revenues expanded just 3.9%. The company is in the middle of a transition from one that sells traditional software running in private data centers to one that runs in the cloud on a subscription basis. The cloud subscription segment grew at 32% in the first quarter. Salesforce said the deal will strengthen its AI-agent offerings.

4.	Temu Parent PDD Growth Slows, Profits Plunge Amid U.S.-China War By Theo Wayt Source: The Information

PDD Holdings' revenue growth slowed and profits plunged in the first quarter, the Chinese e-commerce giant reported Tuesday, as U.S.-China trade tensions battered the company's overseas discount bargain site Temu. PDD shares were trading down 15% on Tuesday morning.

PDD, which doesn't break out Temu's financials, said overall revenue grew 10% to $13.3 billion in the first quarter, the slowest growth in three years. Net income fell 47% year-over-year to $2.0 billion. The January through March results do not include effects of steep tariffs on China and other countries that the U.S. announced in April, though the results do include a 10% tariff on Chinese goods that went into effect in February. The U.S. also briefly eliminated a duty-free trade loophole used by Temu for packages from China in February, then reinstated it before eliminating it again in May.

In response to tariffs, Temu has focused more on shipping orders from warehouses within the U.S. On a call with analysts, PDD Chairman Chen Lei cited a "rapidly changing external environment" and said the company was "helping more local merchants grow on our platform and enabling more orders to be fulfilled from local warehouses."

5.	Meta's Antitrust Trial Ends By Kalley Huang Source: The Information

After six weeks of testimony, the trial for the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust lawsuit against Meta Platforms concluded on Tuesday. Both sides can now file additional briefs in the case this summer. Judge James Boasberg, who is presiding over the case, will then issue an opinion on whether Meta broke the law by buying Instagram and WhatsApp.

The government has argued that Meta created a social media monopoly that illegally crushed competition through its purchases of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. Meta argued that it faces competition in social media, citing TikTok, YouTube and other apps as competitors.

The trial brought a bevy of Meta's current and former executives to the witness stand, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom. If the government prevails in the case, Meta could be forced to sell Instagram, WhatsApp or both apps.

6.	Apple Said It Blocked $2 Billion in App Store Fraud Last Year By Aaron Tilley Source: The Information

Apple claimed that it stopped more than $2 billion in fraudulent transactions and blocked 2 million risky apps from entering its App Store in 2024.

Apple released the figures less than two weeks ahead of its annual developer conference and at a moment when it has suffered a series of potentially devastating legal losses. In Europe, regulators have found that Apple isn't in compliance with the region's new Digital Markets Act law, which is intended to break open online platforms like the App Store.

In the U.S., a federal judge forced Apple to comply with an order allowing U.S. app developers the ability to include alternative payment methods outside of Apple's system. The workaround could eliminate Apple's ability to collect its 15% to 30% fee on transactions in apps from some developers.

Apple's release of the fraud-fighting figure could help it emphasize to app developers the benefits of staying inside the company's "walled garden," where Apple handles payments from users. In the past, Apple has attempted to put up warning signs that it can't protect users if they complete transactions outside of the App Store. If more developers sidestep Apple's payment systems, Apple risks losing tens of billions in revenue every year. In 2024, Apple made more than $27 billion in commissions from the App Store last year, estimated app research firm Appfigures.

7.	Musk raised $600 million for Neuralink following third implant By Evan Robinson-Johnson Source: Semafor

Elon Musk's Neuralink raised $600 million at a valuation of $9 billion, Semafor reported Tuesday, citing anonymous sources. The brain-computer interface company implanted its third chip last month into the brain of an Arizona man with ALS.

The Food and Drug Administration cleared Neuralink for human clinical trials in early 2023 and in May of this year gave the company "breakthrough device designation," which will speed its development. Competitor Precision Neuroscience also received FDA clearance for the main component of its own brain implant.

Neuralink previously raised millions from Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Google Ventures, Valor Equity Partners and Gigafund, a Founders Fund spinoff that has also funded Musk's Boring Company and SpaceX. Bloomberg reported in April that Neuralink was looking to bring in another $500 million at a valuation of $8.5 billion.

8.	New Texas Law Requires Apple and Google To Verify the Age of Users By Aaron Tilley Source: Bloomberg

Texas governor Greg Abbott signed an online child safety bill into law, requiring app stores owned by Apple and Google to authenticate the ages of its users. The bill is intended to keep children away from harmful content found in apps that have been deemed to be inappropriate, including social media and dating apps.

For the past year, Apple has lobbied hard against child safety bills in Texas, as well as other states. In the case of the Texas bill, Apple CEO Tim Cook even made a personal call to Abbott to voice his opposition, Bloomberg reported. Apple has argued that these bills violate the company's privacy promises by forcing it to collect a user's age and then share that information with third-party apps. Apple has argued that it's the apps themselves that should verify the age of users.

In the past, Apple has successfully lobbied against state bills targeting regulation of its App Store. A few years ago, for example, a number of states looked at bills that would have allowed app developers to use alternative payment systems outside of Apple, but the company's lobbying quickly squashed those efforts.

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